 Preservation is a revolutionary act. Since we've submitted the proposal, everyone keeps telling us how the limited access African-American students have to really learning about historic preservation. I think part of the role of this grant, part of the role of this project is to just generally increase awareness of African-American students about the discipline. Our people really wanted an education for their children and that's why I'm so happy when I see you all out there working so hard. I'm very, very proud of you. I'm very proud of you. My name is Milan Jordan and I'm Director of the Hope Crew. And Hope Crew is an acronym that stands for Hands-On Preservation Experience. The National Trust created this initiative to give people experience in the preservation trades because there was an extreme shortage in preservation trade-skilled labor. Our HBCU Digital Documentation Fellowships are powered by the Action Fund and act as an extension of the work to sustain HBCUs into the future. The first year of the Digital Documentation Fellowship was a partnership with three HBCUs, Prairie View A&M University, Tuskegee University, and Florida A&M University. My name is Joshua Francis. I'm a fourth year architecture major. So my project in the fellowship was to find and research three different historically black barrier grounds and then tell this story and ultimately choose a preservation experience for one of them. I ended up going with the Plantation Cemetery at Benton Hill, the newly founded New Hope Cemetery, and Old City Cemetery. So Old City Cemetery is located just outside of the historic boundaries of downtown Tallahassee. So when the cemetery was founded in 1829, it was literally across the street and just immediately outside the city limits. And in the first 11 years of its history, it was the public burying ground. It was open vacant federal land and families from town came out and staked their claim for their family burial plots. Matt Lutz is basically the staff of Old City Cemetery. He's the staff leader for the City Clerk's Office and the Tallahassee government. His job is to basically deal with records management of the site, as well as taking care of the site. So he got trained in cleaning the headstones, and that's why he was able to help us with the project. The decision to go with Old City Cemetery started with my meeting with Matt just because we were having interviews with everyone from each cemetery or burial ground. So we were walking and talking, and I just happened to notice a lot of the headstones are smaller. So my project addressed cleaning the headstones and trying to get them in shape for what little headstones that's there. In developing and sketching out this digital documentation fellowship, I think we really underestimated the role the faculty were going to play in this. They helped us find the projects, they helped us with the curriculum, they helped steward the students through the program. They were really mentors in their own right throughout this. I thought that Josh would be a perfect fit for the project. He was in a class of mine in the spring. He's been working here at the school, and I thought that he would have the leadership skills that pull together a team and could work independently. I think his cemetery project is important. It's a situation, it's an issue, it's a challenge that isn't specific to Tallahassee. It's a national issue, and I think it's also important for the students to realize that cemeteries are examples of architecture, that parks are public spaces, architects are involved in the design of these public spaces, so we should also be involved in the maintenance of them. And by them understanding the environmental impacts on these headstones and these sites of memory, hopefully they'll be better designers in the future. We're in Old City Cemetery because it was a spot that I picked, so I picked this spot just because of the history of it, with it being Tallahassee's oldest public cemetery, and it's by-law segregated. Right now it's full, so it's not the law anymore, but up until the point where it was full, it was segregated. So right now we're working on the historically black side, and then tomorrow we'll do some jazz mapping on the historically white side up in that corner back there. This fellowship definitely is shifting my thoughts on historic preservation, because before I would probably say, I never really thought about historic preservation like that. It opened my eyes just for the different methods to preserve something. It doesn't always have to be hands-on and a dirt. It doesn't always have to be digital documentation. Talking to people and learning about a space can be preserving that space. The Hope Crew Fellowship, I think, is a great opportunity for our students, and not just the two students that are on the fellowship that are leading the project, but also all the students that are helping. I think for Joshua and Cornelius, it's a chance for them to practice their leadership skills. They not only have to finish the project, they have to organize the helpers, so it's a chance for them to demonstrate the ability to be a team leader. I think, though, for all the other students, it's been a great opportunity to get increased introduction to what is historic preservation and really begin to understand the tools, resources, and how it really should be a part of every undergraduate architecture education. Just connecting to where I'm from, St. Croix, to the burial tactics and the ways they go about mourning and burial in Tallahassee, it's kind of different, but also a lot similar. In St. Croix, just the graves itself are different. It's more of that bed shape and structure. Going to St. Croix is not my first time cleaning a grave. I usually go every month to clean my mom's grave, so I can now put together that methods and stuff that I learned from Hope Crue and from this project to clean in my mom's grave. Today, I'm going to be explaining the back history of the John G. Riley House, why John G. Riley himself is important in covering his house. I chose the John G. Riley House for historical significance to education and community. As for John G. Riley himself, he was a very prominent figure, and we'll get to that on the next slide. Cornelius was also in a class I taught last spring. Probably I've known Cornelius for years. What stood out for Cornelius for me always is he started at family architecture. When he was in high school, he was one of these 11th, 12th graders that actually dual enroll and take a college class, but he naturally fit in. I think most of the faculty didn't know he was a high school kid in architecture classes at that time. I've watched him as he moves through our program. He's a local kid, which is great. So I think focusing on local sites of African American history like the Riley House, they matter a little more to him than other student from Orlando, Miami who just picked a site. I think also the idea that technology is important. We need to help our students know that this tech is not just limited to STEM, but it's also a way of archiving history and documenting historic sites. Working with Cornelius was such a unique experience. Knowing that he was a local kid from Tallahassee who'd worked so hard to get ahead and to get into the architecture program to even having his parents on site as he led his classmates was just such an amazing moment for him as a young adult. He was one of the first certified black teachers in the state of Florida. Also, he provided housing for most of the low-income black people in Tallahassee. It's actually really stunning when you see it during processing. So the color is a fantastic for a preservation project like this because you're really going to see and understand everything in detail. The grayscale scanning is slightly less detailed just without the color. Sometimes you can't make out things from a distance. So a house like this, what I would do is I'd start back to the roof lines, any features on the roof and anything that you need to line a site from a far away distance to capture. The machine that we've used in class I personally scanned the entire truth hall and that took me around a hundred... In terms of Cornelius' project I think it was important as a great site for other students to plug in. We have a number of historic sites like the Riley House that need to be documented. I think what his work will start to do is to serve as a lab for the students to learn the use of the scanner, the drones, how to develop those digital tools and then they can plug into the campus project we got funded for. Florida A&M University and Tuskegee University are also recipients of the African American Cultural Heritage Fund's Campus Stewardship Grant. When Hope Crew partners with architecture programs we're really looking to create more preservation minded future architects. So this was never a model where we were looking to create new trades, for people who were going to go directly into the field of preservation trades. We just wanted architects who understood history and preservation better. I think the way Dr. Park sees it is the current elective Cornelius' current project is just a step toward getting more and more students plugged into the campus grant. I think that this experience allow our student body and the students to serve not only the architecture students but also the community at the same time. So I think it could help survey the historic buildings, historic structures. So I hope that they start looking around the neighborhood and thinking about how they can serve the community with what they can do right now. Ultimately this makes differences in our society. It's important to accurately document the historic building like the John G. Rowley House to provide any assistance in any repairs or rehab or reconstruction of a house like this just to make sure it's accurate to the time period before it was maybe destroyed. For the students to enter those spaces after they've done so much research about the lives of the people that either were buried there or lived in these houses or went to these schools, you see that connection happen. So not just to the building itself but to the history that that building tells. It feels amazing to see how my research and training has come together this week for the students and the community around it just to see that people still care about these old buildings and these historic sites. This allows the community to remember and keep moving forward and succeeding where they stopped. This series really shouldn't be lost because it really provides us with a sense of direction and a sense of progress of how far we've come. As I was cleaning John Rowley's headstone the other day I really felt really gracious to continue the legacy of his life's work through education of other students and how to preserve things like his house. I'm Letavia Latham. I'm a grad student at Prairie View A&M University studying architecture. I chose the Wyatt Chapel Cemetery because going to Prairie View we kind of don't know really much about the cemetery that's on campus and I feel that since this fall project is going to bring more students for Prairie View this will give them a better understanding about what is actually going on in the cemetery and the history of the cemetery. Being from Chicago I kind of just seen a lot of the tall buildings and the different designs within the building so that kind of just made me be more interested within architecture and then I took an architecture class in high school and that kind of just confirmed my interest in it and then I'm here now. So I'm kicking off talking a little bit about the trust and some of the initiatives we have that benefit HBCUs but the larger purpose of the orientation is to help contextualize the project that Letavia conceived of and that you guys will be working on over the next three months or so so you'll hear about her project fabrication, black burial grounds and Hope Crew and the National Trust as well too. I'm just going to give you a brief description of the wine chapel cemetery that's located on our campus through oral to the tradition her recent aside land as a burial site for the enslaved from both Alta Vista and the Liano Plantation all by his cousin. In 1876 the Texas governor arranged a division to establish an agriculture school with the budget of $20,000. My project that I'm doing for the cemetery is cemetery signage. I'm going to include a site plan and also is going to include some history about the cemetery on it and we also are planning on doing a website to give students more information about the cemetery and also some mapping details and things I just did over the summer with Hope Crew. Letavia's project narrows in on possibly one of the oldest sites on campus which is the cemetery and the unmarked burial ground area. Letavia developed a project scope that would include 12 cohorts from the School of Architecture. Those students will work in teams of two to design park-like signage that demarcates the sacredness of the site or helps bring memorial to the site in some way. So what's going on today is that we are here at the Wyatt Chapel Cemetery that is adjacent to the prayer views campus. This is a known cemetery for descendants of the Alta Vista plantation as well as Prairie View A&M in its early conception. We're taking a site visit today just to get the students familiar with the space that we'll be working in and representing in the signage that we'll be creating. With this project I get to actually see my project come to life especially once we get approval to make it permanent on the cemetery I feel like there will be a great opportunity for not only me but for also the students that's on campus. Working with Letavia is really special. You really saw her blossom in bloom in the time that we were together. She was very timid and quiet and said that she didn't like to network or speak to people in the beginning she didn't see herself as a leader to the growth that we saw throughout this fellowship at the end she was taking command she was leading people she was making her opinions known and she really brought this project full circle. It's been some previous research done but all of the documentation and archives here have really been in dusty boxes and everything has been passed down through word of mouth and so there could potentially be up to a thousand people buried in this area. It's a beautiful area along the creek but there are only a few headstones that remain and over the years even in recent years those have been broken. The fabrication process that we're embarking on will consist of a five part workshop where I take the students through conception to full scale prototyping. Part of what I'll teach them is designing in three dimension in the actual Fusion 360 software which is one of the top CNC all around manufacturing whereas that's the industry standard. We wanted to do something that was very sensitive to the site. We really didn't want to do something that was going to make it stand out too much because then again it is historic burial ground. The place where I want to locate my proposed signage would be towards the front of the entryway. There's two entryways but I want to do it down this road because this is like the main street that everyone drives. I want to put it towards the front. Lutavia was the perfect person for this fellowship and she had asked the question that a lot of my students ask in studio which is how do we design something contemporary that appeals to our aesthetic but also respect the past and the history of the architecture of the past that's important. Working with Hope Crew has actually brought a lot of light to me because I wasn't really fascinated in working with preservation or with like burial grounds or like cemeteries and I feel like this is actually important because we always was taught in class about different things the slaves went through and I just feel like being here kind of just make me feel kind of what I've been learning all my life. My name is Gabrielle Payne I'm a recent graduate from Pravegana University and I study digital media arts. The process of our fellowship we had to first do our historical research paper which was my favorite part not necessarily the writing of the paper but the research is really great and then we did have to come up with our scope of work and our budgeting process as well just so like hey so we do put this plan into action how are we going to do that? For the budgeting book I do believe I put the start date and look at the calendar I said September 12th okay great and I just shared it I just didn't remember thank you for sharing this okay yes and I would say the cemetery cleanup would be I did believe I'd say October All of Wood Cemetery is the first incorporated cemetery for African-Americans in the Houston area and some beautiful research and work with the site owners the friends or the descendants of All of Wood and their work will create a logo a color scheme representative of the site for them Well I believe this experience provided the students with another opportunity to see how the design works they do can affect different organizations and have an impact on their community and I always tell them it's wonderful when you design something and you actually walk around town and you see it or you see it on the television screen or you see it on a flyer or a poster it just makes you feel like the work you do is valued and it means something So for today we will be having an official meeting with Miss Margo here and Miss Jasmine today they are the work for the descendants of All of Wood so Miss Margo is the one of the founders of the descendants of All of Wood the non-profit organization and she owns the cemetery along with Mr. Charles Cook he's not in right now but Miss Margo he'll be our talking representative and we'll be talking about the project I've developed for y'all which will be a branding book for the cemetery it does not have to be So they found All of Wood in the condition of tall grass weeds, all that and what they have since the early 2000s till now is they cleaned up a lot of it and they haven't had help from the government or anything like that they've been just doing it by themselves for a very long time An opportunity like this to work with a historic site I think it gives students a good lesson in history a good lesson to see where we've come from what our people did to survive how they honored not only to live in but how they honored the dead you know came to this area and built a life that has kind of sustained them until now When I first stepped on the grounds of All of Wood it was really overwhelming due to the fact that these people here I didn't even know that they were here in a historical black cemetery I was like wow like a little part of me wishes that I was born back then so I can get to know them because most of the people there they're like teachers lawyers, doctors um some of them are Freemasons some of them really built Houston and I would love to like get to know each and every single one of them and bring their story like to the light We knew Gabby was a superstar from the beginning We're truly honored and humbled that she attributes her current job role and her current career growth to having been a part of this fellowship I'm about to start my meeting for the All of Wood branding book the final presentation with the students um quite nervous but I think it'll go well um we'll do see how this goes Thank you guys so much um as Miss Jasmine had said earlier yeah this is hard it's hard to decide which one This is what keeps All of Wood alive it takes your living community and all of their investments whether it's time whether it's labor, whether it's creativity it all helps to you know keep the memory of the people that are buried there alive and it helps us protect them as people when everybody comes out after they visited our website that's the first thing they're looking for is that angel so I think the one with the angel would be the one I think for me it was up to me I think Alexis would end up taking it it was just the marriage of like all of these things that kind of came I enjoy working on this project especially working with Gabby because all the work that she has produced throughout last year which really amazed me and going into All of Wood and actually visiting the cemetery was very very helpful in creating the brand book and her being open to everyone's ideas and designs was very helpful alrighty it looks like Miss Alexis is our winner of the branding book congratulations we're getting older but you guys are our future and so you'll be around to tell the stories we have to keep them with All of Wood on their minds so thank you so much thank you yes so that concludes our final presentation today for All of Wood thank you so much and y'all have a nice one that was a good meeting that was a great meeting just finished it I love every part of it seeing everybody's work and seeing you know how happy and made the people all of it be was really nice I think we went really well and I know everyone's excited about having the opportunity to do this for All of Wood, do something that's important just aside that baby even though it was there I thought it was really really great my name is Jordan Lamar fourth year architect major here at Tuskegee University I came to Tuskegee because of architecture I always had a love for the design of buildings I was younger I used to go with my uncles we look at houses and when I walk in they're looking at the size of the space thinking okay I can put this over here but I was looking at the crown molding the type of material that was used inside the houses and that always fascinated me so that's why I came to Tuskegee Jordan is really just an amazing student when he came in freshman year I was his faculty for Design Studio so to see his growth historic preservation he has a knack for working with his hands I love working with my hands it means a lot to me to know that I can have a vision in my head and then I can put my hands on certain things and bring that vision to life favorite part of the whole crew fellowship this summer was creating the historic narrative because doing the research I really got into understanding the Armstrong School the reason behind it for real just talking about it now getting the chills in my body just thinking about it it showed really how the community came together to reach a collective end goal we were really looking to expose the students to a number of hands on learning experiences as well as documentation and storytelling technologies everything from GIS mapping, laser scanning, geotagging the technologies that you need to tell today's stories about the past Jordan I got to work alongside him as his mentor on this project we had a lot of one-on-one sessions talking about the site and I could see enthusiasm shift once he did his research but once he entered the site he went to the site and he talked with Miss Woody the site representative and walked the grounds and talked about how his project is going to benefit them the level of excitement that I saw he brought to the project after having that engagement with her and with the site was really cool to see and just knowing that all of the students in their own way are getting to experience that my name is Dorothy I'm Dorothy Mapson Woody several years ago I met Dr. Daniels up in Huntsville Alabama and of course we went out in the country and there was a church with a little cemetery and a little school house and it was a beautiful school house and it looked so much like a school house and I had some pictures and I said guess what I have a school house down in Macon County he said can I see it I said of course you can I was I could hardly contain myself because this is what I want in all these years someone to come aboard and help me save this school house that project is one that is very near and dear to me because it's one of the oldest remaining rural school buildings that were erected during Booker T. Washington's era and it is a testament to the seriousness that we've always had as a people as it relates to education and so to have a student over 120 years later assisting in the restoration of that school house conducting historic research on it looking at how can we use advanced technology like laser scanning and photogrammetry and to support the work that we're doing is really really amazing being on the ground with the students and seeing each one of the projects is really when it came to life for all of us over the summer I had the privilege of working with the National Trust and the Hope Crew and developing a digital documentation workshop for the Armstrong School to help bring a public face to the site the importance of the site it cannot be overstated when you think about enslavement and the legacies of enslavement you can look at those things that are oppressive experiences for African-Americans and you can look at things that were joyful experiences for African-Americans and what I like to focus on is this idea of black self-determination coming out of enslavement emancipation reconstruction Jim Crow and if our stories and our history is going to be mainstream history then it starts with places like this and documenting places like this because this is our history the school house almost got torn down they kept saying that this whole building is an isolate but I knew it was a historic building I knew it the National Register of Historic Places a nationally steward program that is really a tool for sites to lock into grant opportunities and also preserve the written history of the site and the physical landscape we really do recognize the National Register as an important way to preserve a site and instead of just focusing on the Armstrong School which is what a lot of energy importantly has been put towards we're looking at this National Register nomination as an entire district the contributing features to the district are the school the cemetery and the church building I told him just the other week I said I want this to become a reality before I leave here because you know I'm 73 years young and I really want to see my baby I want to see my baby saved working with the whole crew this summer helped me personally understand what I wanted out of architecture out of my career in the future the community is important to me because it takes a village you can try to do everything on your own but at the end of the day nothing stronger than a group or a community itself if you have a strong community and strong environment I believe personally that you can thrive through all obstacles that come your way the digital documentation fellowship seems to have touched each one of the fellows in a very different way we've seen them grow evolve get professional training find new avenues of interest and really see themselves in the movement many of our fellows are interested in exploring advanced degrees master's degrees in architecture and preservation now as well too entrepreneurship they got a taste of what it was like to lead teams and to work independently and they really see that as a part of their future and path now as well you know the fellows have worked so hard to design projects and they've been working so hard and they've been putting their community and I'm hoping that that continues after we leave we've given them the tools and allow them to make those connections locally with people doing preservation and we're hoping not only can we assist in that continuing but that they will personally continue the work after we leave this fellowship made a nice lead way into Austin because they saw that and they saw my portfolio from my digital media arts program and they're like why we want you on board we don't see or know the historical black sites that have been forgotten I want to bring those lights and the sites to fruition I think this fellowship would affect my career and study in a good way because with my study architecture you kind of design buildings to last forever a lot of my designs moving forward would probably be a lot more sustainable a lot more easy to preserve and a lot more and I'll just think about the culture and the people around the building as a whole working with Hope Crew actually make me feel like I'm wanted honestly and with Hope Crew working with different HBCUs to try to get them to look more into historic preservation I feel like it's a great opportunity during this fellowship it also gave me a different perspective of what architecture is about it's not just about like buildings like you can do more you can instead of designing new buildings you can help the existing buildings or even land that's there Historic preservation means to me the ability to save historic sites and historic events I feel really honored to be able to do these projects with Hope Crew and everyone especially in Tallahassee where I'm from just to add to the history recorded history of the city so that way no one's history is lost After attending my bachelor's degree here at Tuskegee Bachelor's architecture I plan on going thinking about my master's in historic preservation after that I want to take my licensure in architecture on firm help developing the community around me making it stronger and better for the future